Spotted Wing Drosophila, Crop Insurance and Alice Wise

On November 29th, we took a short road trip to Cumberland, Rhode Island to attend a seminar hosted by the University of Rhode Island Cooperative Extension's Peggy Siligato. The owner of Phantom Farms generously provided the venue. The topics under discussion were the spotted wing drosophila (SWD), crop insurance and a talk given by Alice Wise from the Cornell Extension. Richard Coles spoke about the spotted wing drosophila. The female SWD has an ovipositor that is saw-like and can damage pristine fruit in the process of laying eggs. This penetration into the fruit allows other organisms such as fungi and bacteria to have an entry portal. The occurrence of SWD in our area coupled with the wet weather conditions during harvest may have lead to the high incidence of sour rot that was observed. SWD can tolerate extremely cold temperatures but succumbs to high temperatures. Richard Coles and his team are looking into ways of managing SWD.

We were mostly interested in meeting Alice Wise because our intention was to go to Long Island to meet her and talk with her, but we were surprised that the spotted wing drosophila talk and the crop insurance talk were also relevant to grape growing in our area. Alice's talk was on "Practical Considerations For Ecological Vineyard Management". Her newest experiments on Long Island compared conventional spraying protocols, low impact spraying and organic 1 (some conventional intervention) and organic 2 (totally organic) spraying programs. She also made references to the work done by Barbara Shinn who farms Shinn Estates using organic and biodynamic methods.
There were a lot of people at the talks and we saw Paul Nunes from Newport Vineyards and Steve Sawyer from Preston Ridge Vineyard.

Roots Run Deep

This morning, my husband and I were sitting down and doing more research for our as yet pie-in-the-sky vineyard and he came across a wine label that at first blush is really clever. The label called Educated Guess is from the Roots Run Deep Winery in Yountville, California. I have to confess that I know nothing about the winery. When I went over to my husband's computer to see the label, I said, "Oh, that's the flavylium cation of anthocyanin", and he concurred. I asked him to send the link to me and when I did a little more browsing of the site, there was more information on the label, including the following: For those of you who aren’t chemists and want to know more about what the 5 formula strings on the label mean, please download this PDF. So, I downloaded the PDF and found an error. For starters, sulfur dioxide, the explanatory PDF superscripted the 2, like this SO² instead of the correct chemical shorthand, SO₂. There are numerous other errors that appear on the label. How many do you see?

Here is the link to the explanatory PDF.

Partial Rootzone Drying

In the Viticulture course that I took, there was a very short discussion thread regarding partial rootzone drying (PRD). One of the things that was difficult to do was to go off topic because assignments were due on a weekly basis, so consequently the discussion on PRD languished and I was left in the dark.
Fast forward one year. In Jamie Goode's book, Science of Wine, I came across a chapter called "PRD and regulated deficit irrigation". In Goode's book, he credits the theory regarding PRD to research done in the late 1980s at the University of Lancaster, UK. Researchers there identified abscisic acid (ABA) as the plant hormone responsible for communicating the soil-water status from the roots to the shoots.
The way that ABA works is that it affects the status of the stomata, the small pores on the leaves that regulate photosynthesis as well as transpiration. During drought conditions, ABA synthesized in the roots send a signal to the shoots that causes the closing of the stomata to conserve water. They showed this by devising an experiment called the "split-pot system" where the root system of the plant was split into two pots and one side was watered and the other side experienced drought-like conditions.
Extensive practical research using the split-pot experiment was performed in Australia where water stress in the form of drought on part of the root system was found to cause the plants to switch from growing foliage to ripening fruit to ensure survival. Too much water stress leading to excessive drought-like conditions was also detrimental to the plant but just the right amount was shown to lead to the production of high quality fruit.
The split-pot experiment:

The above diagram was extracted from page 22 of 38 pages from Chapters 1-3 found on line and located here:Chapters 1-3.
The thesis project of Manfred Stoll published in October, 2000 can be found on line:Effects of partial rootzone drying on grapevine physiology and fruit quality.
This research was conducted by Brian Lovey, Jim Grant, and Manfred Stoll of CSIRO Division of Plant Industry, Peter Dry of the Department of Horticulture, Viticulture & Oenology, University of Adelaide, and Michael McCarthy of the South Australian Research and Development Institute, SA Viticulture Technical Conference, 1997.

Giving Thanks

Our friends had us over for a little pre-Thanksgiving celebration. They played hosts to a couple from California. We began with two champagnes provided by our hosts. Conversation flowed and issues such as brett and corked wines were discussed. One of the guests from California opined that he was in favor of screw caps even for red wines because there was more than one occasion where he opened a bottle of wine and it was corked.
As the evening progressed 9 of us consumed 11 bottles of "bottled poetry". Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Bottle Shock --- The Movie

Our friend was over last night just hanging out and relaxing and we decided to see the movie, "Bottle Shock", based on what is now referred to as "The Judgement of Paris", a wine competition that took place in 1976, during the U.S. Bicentennial. I recalled the discussion we had online in the Wine Quality UC Davis course that was initiated by Bob Hurlbett. The discussion centered around the scene where the Chateau Montelena chardonnay had turned brown in the bottle and Jim Barrett, disgusted with himself, was about to go back to the law firm he left.
In the movie, Jim's son Bo Barret and Sam, a winery intern, take a bottle of the brown chardonnay to UC Davis. An enology professor says that he's heard of but never seen an example of a white wine so painstakingly protected from O₂ exposure that it turned brown after bottling. He predicts, much to the delight of Bo and Sam, that the wine will lose the brown color and turn clear in a day or two.
Another classmate, Tom Nelson responded to Bob's discussion thread saying that Bo Barrett is an acquaintance of his and asked Bo what his take was on the '73 Chardonnay. The movie actually took liberties because in reality the wine had turned pink and not brown.
From Bo Barrett:
"Hi Tom
The 1973 Chard post bottling color change event was a phenol instability called pinking. It is very briefly described in Zoecklein et al "Wine Analysis and Production". I am certain I have seen better descriptions elsewhere, perhaps Peynaud. Mike Chelini has experienced several during his career at Stony Hill."
Bo Barrett
Master Winemaker
Chateau Montelena Winery
At the Top of the Napa Valley
"Always drink upstream from the herd"
Tom Nelson provided an excerpt from Zoecklein et al, "Wine Analysis and Production", 1995, page 141:
Development of a red blush in white wines, a reaction called pinking, is occasionally observed. Where there is an overall reduction in oxygen exposure, pinking is reported to be the result of rapid conversion of flavenes to the corresponding red flavylidium salts. With reference 7-10, one can see that flavenes are formed in an acidic medium by slow dehydration of corresponding leucoanthocyanins.
In the presence of oxygen, flavenes and leucoanthocyanins are converted to brown pigments. Under reducing conditions, however, accumulations of flavenes may occur. Subsequent rapid exposure of wine to air, such as may occur during transfer, filtration or bottling, converts flavenes to their red flavidium salts, which confer a pink blush to the wine".
Grady Wann, our instructor added:
Although the mechanism of the pinking reaction is not known, there is quite a bit of evidence that the reaction involves the oxidation of a phenolic compound(s). It is usually associated with white wines of certain susceptible varieties that are protected from oxygen during winemaking and then see some air at bottling. The color change can be transitory and is usually avoided when juices see oxidative treatment. (Apparently the phenolics with pinking potential are oxidized at the juice stage and drop harmlessly out of solution.) If the potential for pinking is identified, the wine can be treated with PVPP for stability. (PVPP can also be effective after the fact.) It is an uncommon problem, but does happen. See Andy Waterhouse' research note in AJEV 52: 156-158 (2001).

The Science of Wine by Jamie Goode

The Science of Wine, subtitled "From Vine to Glass" is written by Jamie Goode and published in 2005. The book is divided into 3 sections: "In the Vineyard", "In the Winery" and "Our Interaction with Wine". In each section, Jamie Goode presents relevant and current material of interest many of which are controversial, and provides scientific explanations. For example, in Section 1, Goode has a chapter on biodynamics with a handy chart of the preparations used in biodynamic farming:

Goode writes that the key to biodynamics is to consider the farm as a living system and the soil as an organism in its own right. Goode sites the work of Prof. John Reganold at Washington State University who compared conventional farms in New Zealand with biodynamic farms. It was published in Science in 1993 and was entitled Soil Quality and Financial Performance of Biodynamic and Conventional Farms in New Zealand. This study found that the biodynamic farms had significantly higher soil quality, with more organic matter and microbial activity.
This is just one of the topics that Jamie Goode covered in this book. I found others to be just as intriguing and in the coming days I hope to post other topics in this blog. Please stay tuned and come back!

Hand Held GC for Ethanol Testing

In the UC Davis Quality Control and Analysis for Winemaking class, I learned that there are several methods of measuring ethanol. There are combinations of distillation with hydrometry, pyncnometry, densitometry, or dichromate oxidation and titration, in addition to ebulliometry, near infrared, enzymatic, HPLC and GC methods. There was a table provided that listed the advantages and disadvantages of the various methods that I am reproducing here:

I was reading the newest edition (November-December 2011) of Vineyard and Winery Management and came across an ad for something called the Mini GC (gas chromatograph) for analyzing ethanol levels. The mini GC is about the size of a shoebox weighs about 3 pounds and comes with the Lab Navigator which can control, monitor and analyze the test results from the GC.
Has anyone tried this equipment?
More information can be found at this link:
Forston Lab's Mini GC/Lab Navigator

Please see the February 6, 2012 post for an Update on the Forston Mini GC.

Cold Tolerance and Grapevine Phenology

2011 has been a really challenging year for growing grapes in the Northeast. In June, Wines and Vines had the following article about Eastern Winegrowers Face Weird Weather. In October, after harvest, there was an unseasonably early snowfall that covered a good portion of Connecticut. I thought that I would review my notes to see how cold affects the different stages of a growing grape vine(grape vine phenology).
There are three times during the year when cold can have devastating and potentially irrecoverable damage to a growing grapevine and they are:
1) During spring deacclimation
The young grapevine growing in the spring is especially susceptible to conditions that are even a few degrees below freezing as they deacclimate from winter dormancy.

2) During fall cold hardy acclimation
During the late summer and fall, the grape vines are preparing to go into dormancy by producing a layer called the periderm. The periderm provides cold hardiness to the vine by filling the inner living cells with sugars, proteins and amino acids. These compounds are the vine's cryoprotectant which enables it to withstand the colder temperatures of winter. The cryoprotectants bind up the water making it less available to form ice which can result in bursting the living grape vine cells!
3) During winter freeze and thaw conditions
The occurrence of severe freeze events in the winter is another way grape vines can become prone to damage to the point that they may not be able to survive. Mid-winter fluctuations that occur when cold temperatures are interrupted by a period of unseasonably warm temperatures and then becomes cold again can also lead to grape vine damage.

A really informative online article on cold and the grape vine can be found here:
Understanding and Preventing Freeze Damage in Vineyards
~ Workshop Proceedings ~
December 5-6, 2007 University of Missouri-Columbia

Desperately Seeking a Good Barbera

When we went out to California to look at rootstocks and clones of grape varieties that we wanted to grow, we were advised that Barbera might be a good choice in our area. We don't know anyone growing Barbera in Connecticut, let alone the Southeastern New England AVA. I'm really not a fan of Barbera, possibly because of my limited experience with tasting it so we thought that we would do our homework and taste a range of Barberas.

We began with a 2006 Barbera D'Alba Scudetto (vineyard name) Mascarello (name of the family) Giuseppe e Figlio, a family owned winery that can trace back it's origin to 1881. This wine costs about $30.00 and was dark purple in color with a nose of cherries and a touch of leather. The flavor was a bit tannic and green so it could be that the wine needs to sit longer.

The second Barbera we tasted was a Ferdinando Principiano Laura 2009. We thought that Barberas in general benefit from being tasted with some kind of tomato-based food so we made a spaghetti. The color of the Principiano was a dark burgundy and somewhat cloudy. The flavor was fruit driven sour cherries.

At the same time that we drank the Principiano, we also tasted a 2008 Oddero. The Oddero was lighter in color and clear. This wine was not fruit driven and had enough tannins making it seem a bit more complex than the Principiano.

Lastly, we sampled a Conterno Fantino Vignota 2009 which tasted like a combination of the Principiano and the Oddero, with a nice balance of fruit and tannins. Interestingly, the Mascarello was the most expensive at $30.00. The Oddero, which we liked was $14.00 and the Principiano and the Conterno Fantino were $20.00.
We're still on the fence about planting Barbera in Connecticut and still desperately seeking a good Barbera.
Any suggestions?

A Visit to Preston Ridge Vineyard

Yesterday, my husband and I called Steve Sawyer and asked if we could visit him to ask questions regarding his new winery. Steve made time to see us on the spur of the moment. We arrived at his location around 4 p.m. just as his partner Mark was leaving for New Jersey. Steve gave us a tour around his new facilities. This is his first crush! I can just imagine how exciting it must be after all the years of work to design and create a new winery and vineyard. That's my husband on the left and Steve on the right.
Steve let us taste the juices fermenting in his winery, a very nice blush wine made from Baco noir and a Cabernet franc. His 2400 square foot winery that we saw when it was just under construction in June, was now filled with stainless steel tanks, wooden barrels, crusher destemmer, press, lab, and a bottling room.
As we talked, a beautiful sunset illuminated the sky, a gorgeous view from the deck of the tasting room. More information about Preston Ridge Vineyard can be found here:
Preston Ridge Vineyard

NEWS FLASH: Article on Eddy Naim's Chateau Qanafar

Hi All!
I received an email from Eddy Naim. He is doing very well. In a previous blog I gave a link to Eddy's Facebook Site.
Eddy was recently interviewed for The Daily Star. Read the article here:
Businessman trades board rooms for vineyards

More on Biodynamics --- Article by Glenn McGourty

In Katherine Cole's book, Voodoo Vintners, she writes about a study done by Glenn McGourty of UC Davis. This study was published in the American Journal of Enology and Viticulture by Glenn McGourty and Washington State scientists Jennifer Reeve, L. Carpenter-Boggs and John Reginold. Here is a link to more information about biodynamic farming written by Glenn McGourty:
UC Cooperative Extension advisor researches biodynamic grape production.